Is The Barefoot Writer a Scam? Here’s My Review

The Barefoot Writer, part of American Writers & Artists Inc. (or AWAI), is a subscription magazine online that claims to help people like you to become a highly-paid and sought-after writer.

Their goal is to help people break free from the “starving artist” mentality, and to live the laptop lifestyle writing for cash.

But is it just another scam, or is it indeed legit? Let’s dive in!

My Review of Barefoot Writer

Website: www.thebarefootwriter.com

Owner: Paul Hollingshead

Price: $108/year + upsells

Rating: 36/100

What is the Barefoot Writer and How Does It Work?

The Barefoot Writer is a website and magazine that helps anyone with a passion for writing become a professional writer.

The website is essentially just a sales pitch for the magazine subscription and the official Barefoot Writer’s Club, which costs $108 per year to join.

Also heavily advertised is a free report on 9 Ways to Make a VERY Good Living as a Writer.

Their free report requires your email address and name before you can access it.

Highly recommended:

This is the best alternative to the Barefoot Writer I’ve found: check it out.

My Experience with Barefoot Writer

Here’s my full disclosure: I am not a paying member at Barefoot Writer. However, I have dug through their free resources a bit and done a lot of research on them.

Since their report on the 9 ways to make a very good living as a writer is free, I decided to download it to uncover the secrets inside.

Here’s what I found:

The report contained everything it promised. It showed 9 good ways to make money as a writer. However, all it did was explain what you’d be doing in each scenario, and then tell you how much money you could expect to make.

No guidance was given for actually getting into each line of work. That’s to be expected though. After all, it was a free resource intended to get you to sign up as a paying member of The Barefoot Writer’s Club.

Unfortunately, none of the 9 ways to make money as a writer were anything to write home about. There are MUCH better guides out there, including this one which lists 103 ways to make money as a writer. (You may want to check it out – lots of awesome ideas).

Barefoot Writer’s Club Complaints

There are a TON of Barefoot Writer complaints online, but real testimonials of people living the laptop lifestyle because of Barefoot Writer are hard to come by, and the ones that exist seem strangely fishy.

Let’s take a dive and see what people have to say about Barefoot Writer:

I don’t know about you, but I would definitely avoid this opportunity and spend my valuable time doing other things like…blogging!

This works great for making money online, and is a great alternative to the Barefoot Writer. I like blogging because you don’t get a set salary, rather you can essentially decide your pay by the quantity and quality of the content you put out.

Anyway, let me try to break down the Pros and Cons of Barefoot Writer so we can visualize what they’re about a little better.

Barefoot Writer Pros vs. Cons

Pros

They have some okay free resources available for people who want to make money writing – however, they’re not much help if you want to know exactly how to go about doing it.

With their hyped-up sales video and casual claims that you can make THOUSANDS with just one article, they are quite the inspiration. (Not sure this counts as a pro? lol)

Cons

Too much hype and too many false claims

You can’t get any useful information without being a paid member which costs $108

Apparently, you’ll be hit with up-sells to the tune of $150 after paying the initial price.

They are selling the dream, and therefore getting a lot of attention from innocent people who just want to make a living writing. Why is this a con? Because there is absolutely no conclusive evidence that anyone has become successful and been able to live the dream due to Barefoot Writer.

Final Thoughts and My Recommendation

Barefoot Writer just looks like another one of those hyped-up products claiming you can easily make outlandish sums for rather simple writing tasks. Only the gifted writers can ever hope to be paid the amounts they claim anyone can earn.

Hype much? This is a screenshot of one of Barefoot Writer’s ads.

I would have liked to see them be a little more up-front about how exactly they operate, because as a consumer I found it a bit too confusing for my liking.

Nothing was explained very well – it was mostly just vague descriptions and bold claims.

And, I just want to put this out there:

If you have been, or you know of, someone who’s become a successful full-time writer because of Barefoot Writer, then PLEASE for the good of everyone with a slight interest in joining Barefoot Writer, write up a detailed explanation/case study with real FACTS explaining your story. I’m sure we’d all appreciate something like that!

Have you ever used Barefoot Writer? What are your thoughts on it? Feel free to leave a comment below, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

I’ve done a lot of research and written many reviews of different make money online opportunities, and every single time I’ve come to the conclusion that none of them outdoes my number 1 recommendation for working from home (that’s why it’s my number 1 recommendation!).

If you want to learn how to build a successful online business and work entirely from home, definitely check it out.

Tons of people have had success following the training, but here are just a few success stories from real members (click to view their whole story):

In response to your statement that very little info from people who have tried the course, I just recently paid my $49. In the short amount of time that I have been able to access the information available have learned more than I ever thought I could learn about copy writing.
Sure google searching can answer a lot of the questions, but if you don’t know what questions to ask how are you going to search and get helpful results?
$49 is a reasonable amount to pay for the guidance and direction that someone who is completely new to the industry might need.
I find it interesting that the person claiming to be getting treated with no regard is listed as anonymous maybe if he/she would say who they are someone from AWAI might actually look into it and make it right.
The information and people I have seen and will soon be meeting who are members of AWAI are not the type of individuals who need to scam people for money.
It’s such a shame that people feel it necessary to bash a company without having all the facts. I you do not understanding marketing or are not willing to put in the work that making money takes, no matter what you choose to do, just don’t, there is no reason for the negativity – isn’t there already enough in the world today?
KH

Thank you very much for sharing your experience with Barefoot Writer! I’m really glad to hear it’s working out well for you. As you have probably noticed, there are tons of negative reviews of the program online, and some positive ones as well. I think like with anything, it is the perfect fit for some people, and for others it’s not, and something else will work better. My aim with this post was to reveal my findings after a lot of research on the program, and share them with those who were unsure whether Barefoot Writer was worth the money or not. To that end, again, thank you so much for sharing your experience. I am certain many will find it helpful! Wishing you continued success! 🙂

Well, Like Kim, I am giving it a go… I’ve been doing the research for the past few months trying to decide if I should purchase a program / module that has peaked my interest. And Indeed I have purchased a couple, for under $100 each, so not breaking the bank. Like AWAI has claimed, and is probably true for so many people like me, I’m in a rut at work and would love making another stream of income, eventually turning that into full time (copy writing) because I actually want to give it a go as a barefoot writer. The options that comes with is my hope as well. Hokey or not, I’m going to plug into their free webinars and get some insight to different topics, like how to get your first client(s), how to update your linkedin profile etc.

I hope this is a little helpful. I love writing and would like, for now, another stream of income, and would like to see where it goes, if anywhere.

I’m going to do more researching on Blog Writing as well. Thank you for the suggestion.

Thanks for your post about this company. I think you are right that all they are selling is a dream and a 6 figure one. The writing is terribly long and drawn out. It’s like being honked to death with a hammer and them telling you it’s great ! I have received about 15 emails so far which I find inefficient as well as laborious. I know they copied that template 😂 . Anyway I’m unsubscribing right now and going to focus on writing. All the best

I have to agree. Their sales page is ridiculously long, and because of that probably doesn’t even convert well. If it is any indication as to how you’ll be learning to do copy writing, I’d steer clear – valuable copy writers can write spectacular sales copy without drawing it out so long. There are much better alternatives.

I too unsubscribed after receiving tons of emails from them, though I continue to receive their emails in the ad section of my Gmail account….

I didn’t join The Barefoot Writer Club, but I have taken some of the courses offered by AWAI and have attended some of their free webinars and here is what I’ve taken away from the experience. AWAI programs give you the copy writing basics, but don’t expect to learn everything you need to start your own freelance copy writing business just by taking a couple of their courses. Their courses require you to create actual writing samples which you submit for review and you do get an actual response from an actual member of their team not a computer. They write comments, offer suggestions, and explain to you where your copy can be improved and how to do it. However, you are going to need to do further reading and research on your own. Also, no matter what they claim about not needing to have any prior experience writing, you do need something. I co-majored in college in Elementary Education and English so it was okay for me, but if you don’t have any kind of writing background, you’re better off taking actual writing courses in an actual school. Bottom line: AWAI and Barefoot Writer can be useful resources when used in conjunction with other material, but you can’t full rely on them to launch a copy writing career.

AWAI Online is a scam. Don’t believe any of the favorable reviews. They were all written by AWAI Online itself. Don’t even subscribe to them because your mailbox will get flooded with ‘Last chance’ offers. And you can’t unsubscribe. I’ve tried 5 times and the email just keep coming and coming.
I can’t get rid of them.
No reputable company pesters the public with emails that keep repeating ‘last chance’ offers.

I have been an AWAI member for 6 months. Yes it is cheap to join but can get costly as you learn depending on the courses you take. They do have an unsubscribe link that does work. I am an Infinity member which gives me access to a lot of secrets in copywriting that does work and free courses that are valuable in information that is very useable. Once a year you can meet all the other writers at a convention (they are very real indeed). However the more serious they see that you are in learning the more help you will receive. Look, I paid 65,000 for my college degree and no one calls that a scam. Education is not free. I have spent $2800 at AWAI and it has been worth every penny. I have learned a lot and you can very much use this learning to make a good income.

That’s awesome to hear, thanks for sharing you success! As you know, there are a ton of negative reviews as well which can’t easily be discounted. Everyone is different and will therefore by default have different experiences and opinions, even with the same thing. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

I didn’t understood how could someone write an article wondering if (not really wondering, but strongly suggestion) “Barefoot Writer” was scam. But as soon as I read “I am not a paying member at Barefoot Writer. However…” I got it: you’re critisizing a paid service you don’t have ever tried. Nice. Let me tell you my story.

I joined Barefoot Writer for $49/year a month ago. I could immediatly have access to 9 Bonuses (including Mark Ford’s, aka Mike Masterson, “Archytecture of Persuasion” book and some other +100-pages valuable materials), in addition to all the past issues of that magazine, private Facebook groups and forums and some special offers: for example, being a Barefoot Writer member allowed me to buy AWAI’s Accelerated Six Figure Program (AWAI’s core copywriting course) for $197 instead of $497.

As a published writer and advocate for writers, I have learned one thing along the way – you can subscribe to every site and magazine out there, but it is still ultimately up to you to make things happen. The protocol is changing a little, self-publishing is not quite the stigma it used to be, bad writing gets published, good writing may never see the light of day, but unless you land a great agent, or get picked up by an amazing publishing house, no one holds your hand. I personally don’t think the Barefoot Writer is a scam – it’s another tool to use and make the most of it.

Very true, especially for services such as online training – where quality is variable and objective. Even the best training in the world won’t help if you don’t put in the effort. Everyone will have different tastes. For me, I can’t stand the hype and am always a bit wary when negative reviews prevail and genuine success stories are so hard to find.

I have downloaded a couple of AWAI’s content pieces. One thing their emails and products remind me of is the way Bob Bly used to write. Early in my career, I bought a couple of Bly’s books about making money writing and they were similar to the way AWAI writes and operates.

I was turned off by Bly in the end because everything he wrote went on forever. He even said that the longer the piece, the better. That doesn’t fit with today’s ideas about scanning on the internet. AWAI reminds me of this in many ways. All of their emails, ebooks, etc. are extremely padded, in my opinion, and could use a dose of editing to get rid of the flab.

However, I cannot directly address the value of the course. I have decided not to buy it.

Thank you for the first HONEST REVIEW on AWAI!!! I paid the $49 to join, have been SPAMMED every day 3 to 5 times from day 1!! I tried this other sales pitch to get better info and it was nothing more then a yammering on and on and on SALES PITCH!!! One ad they went on about was actually written in 1995!!! Doctor Christina Northrop was on the cover…the story was not about her but the funny part was I FOLLOW HER BLOG!!! So when I saw her photo from 25 years ago, red flags went up. Then the more I research their copy the more I saw how out dated much of it was. After this blog post, I had to say something…I am asking for a FULL REFUND now THANK YOU!!!!

Do people still read?Since audio books hit, it appears that reading may be something people might do if extremely bored or in prison.
I used to write on a site that got quite a few comments (between 10 and 85) but even that fell off and no one, except my close fans, bothered to leave feedback. Thanks for the interesting article.My head is hurting from so much reading……